Where to Market Your Writing Skills

There are a lot of great places to get gigs when you're ready to hang out your own shingle.

My partner and I get around 75% of our business from referrals and clients that use our services on a regular basis for content because they know they'll get quality content.

However, I still market our business every single day and if you're wondering where, here is a few of the places I hit on a regular basis:

Absolute Write has some great posts for writers seeking gigs.
http://absolutewrite.com/forums/

Journalism Jobs.com is another cool place to pick up writing gigs. If you're looking for casual writing, put in "blogger" as a search term.
http://www.journalismjobs.com/index.cfm

Monster.com; yes the Monster is actually a decent place to get writing gigs. I scored a fun blogging job off there for a pregnancy and wellness site.
http://www.monster.com

And the hoss daddy site to snap up writing gigs is at Craig's List. Yes it's raw and there are a ton of scams but you can usually spot them fairly easily.
Here's a good thing for anyone with a yahoo addy, you can put a 100+ cities into your "My Yahoo" and just let the feeds post and you can see what gigs are available for many cities at once at a glance.
http://www.craigslist.org/

And a tip on how to market yourself. Don't write your life story, be short and sweet and just convey that not only can you do the job, you can do it well.

Don't send samples unless asked, just write a short blurb setting up an introduction.
Then you can sell them on your services and send samples in a follow up. That way oyu aren't wasting a lot of time writing long introductory emails and sending samples all over the web.

Also, don't plead and beg for business. I have seen writers send emails that went something like this, "Hello, I am responding to your ad and wondered if you would give me a chance to write for your firm? I am a single stay-at-home-mom that just needs a chance...."

Needless to say she didn't get the gig. Instead, just tell the potential client off the bat the benefits of dealing with your writing company. Terms like "original, entertaining content" will work much better than "give me a chance".

And that's my two cents for the day.

Good luck!

Tips for Making the Leap to Stay at Home Writing Mom

My partner and I get a lot of e-mails from women that are trying to find a way to write and stay home with their kids.

In a nutshell, here are the basics for working at home - if you're ready to make that jump take this information into consideration:

• Get a space to work in at home
  It is important that you have a space to call your own. Even though you work primarily work online writing, you will still need a place to write and a place to keep your paper files with things like rates you charge a particular client, IRS papers, state license filings.
  
  
• Be legal I've seen it happen too many times to other people not to warn you about this. The IRS and your State Tax department don't really care that you didn 't know you needed to pay taxes or file a DBA to do business in your home state. You'll get hit with a letter asking for
  money and it will usually have a large amount of penalities and interest.
  The best way to find out what you need to do to be in business for yourself is to check with your secretary of state.
  
  
• '|Be Prepared to Work on a Schedule
  It may not be 9-5, but you will need a schedule.
  My current schedule is based around the schedule of both my kids and my partner and I
  find I'm very productive when I spend my days with my family and then after dinner and after the kids have hit the hay for the night, I work on writing.
  Our toddler takes a roughly one to two hour nap in the afternoon, I use that time to
  market every single day.
  
  
• Market Your Business or Fail
  Just because you're good doesn't mean people will beat a path to your door. You MUST market your business if you expect to make a living at it. This many years later, I still market my services every single day and as a result, I have a very steady income stream.
  
  
• Don't Neglect Your Partner or Your Children
  Working at home can be a real challenge. Some people have trouble finding time to work. Other people find too much time to work and wind up putting in 18-20 hour days. This will only lead to burn out and feelings of neglect from your family. Keep your work schedule reasonable and remember, you're supposed to ENJOY this!
  
  ....tips on where to market coming up.....next post!